796. Stryper / To Hell With the Devil. 1986. 4/5

To be completely honest, I have absolutely zero idea exactly how I first came to hear of this band, and this album in particular. It was 1987, it was my final year of high school, and I was trying to grab any piece of hard rock/heavy metal music I could find. Stryper announced a tour of Australia, and about of dozen of my group got tickets to go. I'm hazy on whether I had heard this album before that moment, but I certainly listened to it a lot in those months leading up to the tour. I know the band appeared on the "Midday Show" on Channel 9 with the Rev. Fred Nile, who tried to denounce them on live TV, and they were able to win the crowd over in attendance (Nile even had his photo taken with them wearing a leather jacket). So I knew they were a Christian band before getting into the album, that much is somewhat clear. Given my non-religious views and that of my parents, it must have confused them slightly at the time. It probably confused me as well.

So how to take this album? I take it the same way I take albums like Slayer's Hell Awaits or Morbid Angel's Covenant or Mercyful Fate's Melissa. All great albums and all with lyrics that aren't anything I consider important to me or to be a way of leading my life. I love all of these albums on their musical merit and not on anything that the lyrics in the songs may be trying to represent. It is fine that Stryper is a Christian band, and that they are trying to spread their message in their music. Good for them, go right ahead. I'll pass on the message thanks, but I will enjoy some ripping tunes all the same, and try to ignore some rather dreadful ones at the same time.
If I was to focus on the ballads here, I wouldn't get more than a fifth of a second into the album before frisbeeing it across the room into a wall at a thousand miles an hour. Hair metal bands breed power ballads like rabbits, and most of them are just awful. There's no hiding from them here either. "Honestly" is a travesty, that keyboard-based touch-your-heart kind of puking vomit that makes some people feel good about themselves, but which just makes me want to gouge my own eyes out. Michael Sweet can sing, but oh please no more of this! Of course, there is more, because "All of Me" is the Side 2 equivalent of this. It could conceivably be its twin, and they both terribly corrupt the great music that is otherwise prevalent on the album. I can tell you that it was a painful act on my original vinyl copy of this album having to get up and lift the needle off these tracks each time they came on and replacing it at the start of the next good song. Transferring it to cassette for the car took that problem out, as did they 'skip' button when the CD version was purchased, and also now that it has been transferred to a digital copy as well.
Let's get to the important stuff. The opening track "To Hell With the Devil" is a balltearer, and was my first taste of Michael Sweet's pipes - bloody hell, this guy can SING! Then get a load of those twin guitars of Sweet and Oz Fox. Awesome, and more was to come. "Calling On You" falls back to a more basic hard rock track, but is still impressive. "Free" falls into the same category, good solid songs with great harmony vocals throughout. Then after the moroseness of "Honestly" you get the gem of "The Way", a charging metal track highlighted by Michael's amazing vocals. Those notes he hits at the end of the song are just amazing. Even more so when you hear him sing it live, because yes, he does it just as well and note perfect. Ridiculous.
Side 2 commences with "Sing-Along Song", which seems to be a metaphor for a kids song - surely it had to be when they came up with the title. "Holding On" is a straight forward, less convincing track that could have done with a little more power when they wrote it. "Rockin' the World" is much better, faster, heavier and with a more enjoyable beat to it. After the second abominable track, the album finishes with the hard rocking "More Than a Man".

As I mentioned, I saw Stryper when they toured Australia on this album. 28 years later and it is still the loudest concert I have ever seen. The band was brilliant, and Michael Sweet sings everything the same live as he does in the studio. The memory of that brilliant gig probably continues to prop up my enjoyment of this album. I still think the positives far outweigh the negatives here, though it will always held in higher esteem with me through the tinge of nostalgia it will always bring whenever I listen to it, I think it still holds most of that of its own accord.

Rating:  You want it, we got it, rock that lifts you up it doesn't bring you down.  4/5